Elastomeric rubbers such as, urethane, silicone, and ethylene propylene diene M-class rubber are typically used to mold tires for various rolls (e.g., nudger roll, feed roll, retard roll, take away roll) of a media feed assembly. Tire life is defined by the smallest number of sheets fed before either: 1) the tire to media coefficient of friction (Cof) drops below a minimum value required to acquire and feed a sheet of media resulting in mis-feeds or 2) abrasion between the tire and media reduces the tire diameter to a minimum diameter or causes the tire to not run true and exceeds a maximum runout. Small diameter tires can allow the media to interfere with mechanical components in the feed head while run out skews the media's lead edge during the acquisition and feed cycles. Significant development work is required to find the correct elastomer with properties that balance tire coefficient of friction versus the abrasion resistance to achieve maximum effective roll life.
Accordingly, there is a need to overcome these and other problems of prior art to provide rolls of media feeding assembly with improved wear resistance and methods of making them.